Governatives

According to a survey published by the Daily Mail, the British people are in favor of staying in Britain EU, and even sharply. The poll result says that if you held a referendum today on Brexit, 52% of voters would vote’ yes’ in Brussels against the 41% of ‘no’.

The British, however, do not believe the alarm raised by Prime Minister David Cameron that divorce Union could bring back a conflict on the continent after decades of peace. The survey underlines a general trend in recent surveys that saw a recovery in the face pro EU. According to the Financial Times, which on its website has a ‘thermometer’ with the average of major polls, the campaign Remain is at 47% and that for Brexit to 41%, while the percentage of undecided voters remains still large, around 10 %.

Portugal is the first country in the European Union member who is able to meet its energy needs for several days exclusively with renewable energy. Wind power, hydro and solar have been sufficient to guarantee 107 hours of autonomy, from 6:45 am on Saturday 7 May at 17:45 up to Wednesday, May 11th.

The analysis of data provided by the government has certified the result achieved, as stated in the article published on the Portuguese NGO Zero site. According to experts, good management and favorable weather conditions have helped the country to benefit from recent investments in wind and hydropower.

With the publication of the ratification law in the "Official Journal", the tax agreement Italy-Switzerland, mainly for the exchange of information between the tax authorities of Rome and Bern, entered into force.

The rule is that until 2018, the two countries will exchange information on request only, both on an individual basis and in groups while starting from 2018, the exchange will become automatic. To use the data obtained in this way, however, it can only be the judicial or administrative authorities which had requested them.

The Federal Reserve leaves a door to a possible rate hike in June, which would judge "appropriate" if the macroeconomic data were to confirm an acceleration of the US economy in the second quarter (the GDP in the 1st quarter marked an abrupt deceleration).

This is revealed by the minutes of the last meeting of the FOMC, the monetary policy committee of the Fed, on 26 and 27 April. On that occasion, the bankers had preferred to leave interest rates unchanged in a band between 0.20% and 0.50%, after the first increase work last December.

Spain has placed on the market a 50-year state title. Following the example of Belgium who recently successfully priced titles in this length of time, even Madrid decided to refinance a maturing issue in 2066. Even Italy is considering to issue a 50-year bond, but for now nothing is yet planned by the Treasury. Interest in the very long-term emissions comes mainly from pension funds and insurance funds, in pursuit of higher returns to zero and at the same time to have in "investment grade securities portfolio". Spain in fact enjoys BBB + rating from Standard & Poo’rs and Fitch and Baa2 by Moody’s.

The Russian company Open Mobile Platform is developing an alternative operating system to Android and iOS, which are currently installed in 90% of the smartphones of the Russian population. In this way Putin intends to break the duopoly of Apple and Google and protect information about their citizens.

The Russian company, founded only a month ago, would be at work in the creation of an operating system based on Linux and derived from Sailfish OS, designed for large enterprises and for those who care about the privacy and security. Initially this OS should only be made available in the Russian language to meet the local demand and regulatory requirements, and then try to expand into the rest of the world.

The City of Lugano has decided to act on a request agreement with Almaty in view of a network collaboration with partners active in the area. The mission’s program provides, in fact, for each company present, a series of B2B meetings with potential Kazakh partners. Considering that in Lugano there is already a significant number of activities related to Kazakhstan in the most dynamic sectors, the agreement with Almaty is a good opportunity for the promotion of Lugano worldwide and serves as a support to the development strategies already in place at regional level.

China’s industrial production, retail sales and investment undershot expectations in April, despite Beijing’s aggressive easy-money policies in the first quarter, indicating ongoing weakness in the world’s second-biggest economy. Industrial output increased 6.0% year-over-year in April, down from 6.8% growth in March, the National Bureau of Statistics reported, coming in below economists’ forecast for a 6.6% gain. In addition to that, retail sales rose by a less-than-predicted 10.1% in April compared with a year earlier, slowing from March’s 10.5% year-over-year surge. Fixed-asset investment in urban areas grew by a weaker-than-expected 10.5% year-over-year in the January-to-April period, compared with an annual increase of 10.7% for the first three months of 2016.